City Unveils No-Growth Fiscal Plan : Finances: Glendale officials hope that their $282-million preliminary budget for 1991-92 will avoid some of the controversies of its predecessor.

Seeking to avoid last year’s controversy over new taxes and program cuts, Glendale city officials are proposing a no-growth budget for the next fiscal year that restructures programs to cut costs.

A preliminary 1991-92 budget introduced Tuesday represents a leveling off of several years of growth in city services, said Glendale Finance Director Brian Butler, who has worked on the city’s annual budget for 14 years.

Unlike its 1990-91 predecessor, the roughly $282-million proposed budget adds no new taxes, although it includes slight increases in water, garbage collection and electricity rates. It allows for inflation but adds no new programs or workers to the city’s administrative, police or fire departments.

“It is a bare-bones budget,” City Councilman Carl Raggio said after a council study session in which the preliminary budget was discussed. “There really isn’t any fat in it. We took the big bite last year, and what you’re seeing is the carry-over.”

The preliminary budget is 6.2% higher than last year’s $266-million budget. Inflation rose by 6.1% in 1990.

The budget calls for roughly 3% increases in monthly refuse, electricity and water rates. Sewage rates, which doubled last year, will stay the same under the preliminary plan, City Manager David Ramsey said.

The preliminary budget avoids new taxes or larger rate increases partly by proposing to alter or consolidate existing programs, Ramsey said.

For instance, to save money, the city can consolidate its hazardous waste management program with those of Pasadena and Burbank, he said. The city can also manage some of its sports and day camp programs as self-supporting enterprises with participants paying fees, he said. The programs are being revised to coordinate with year-round classes beginning in July at some Glendale schools, Ramsey said.

Some services being developed, such as a computerized library research system and an inspection program for apartment buildings, can also pay for themselves if users pay fees, Ramsey said.

“We may move some things around internally,” he said. “The only way we will get new services is through greater efficiency. It’ll be a tougher year and we simply have to reflect that.”

The capital improvement program proposed in the budget includes street, parking and traffic improvements, relocation of a fire station, historic site acquisition and a public art program.

Two major projects might be postponed, officials said. Funds had been budgeted for remodeling the Civic Auditorium and for developing a “freeway park” on city land near the Glendale Freeway, but projected cost overruns may delay the work, they said.

Last year’s spending program was adopted only after a boisterous, seven-week debate during which officials cut $1.1 million from the preliminary budget, raised the tax on hotel guests, imposed a new tax on cable television users, and boosted water, sewage and electricity rates.

After Tuesday’s study session, council members appeared satisfied that the proposed budget was fiscally conservative and maintained Glendale’s history of having no bonded indebtedness. Some members said they expected a less hectic adoption process this year.

But they were also cautious in their assessments of preliminary spending figures. Raggio warned that the proposed $200,000 unallocated contingency fund for unexpected expenses may not be large enough to cover costs of potential summertime fires, such as the massive College Hills blaze in June.

Councilwoman Ginger Bremberg said she believes that some city departments may ask for additional personnel when they file their specific budgets in the next several months. That would require more money than is allocated in the proposed $83-million general fund.

Several more council study sessions on the budget will be held in May. The final budget proposal will be presented to council members in mid-May for adoption before July, Butler said.